DeKalb County announces property tax increase, sets public hearings

DEKALB COUNTY, GA – The DeKalb County Governing Authority announced its intention to increase 2024 property taxes this year by 11.08 percent over the rollback millage rate.

DeKalb County has six separate tax levies. Two of those levies (the general and hospital funds) are used in the required calculation for the rollback rate. The other tax levies (police, fire, designated, and the special tax district bond fund), when combined with the general and hospital levies, produce the same benchmark millage rate of 20.810 mills from last year. The combined millage rate for the general and hospital funds will exceed the rollback millage rate. However, the method used to calculate the rollback rate does not take into account offsets in those rates or factor in the credit given by the equalized homestead option sales tax (EHOST) beginning in 2018. For 2024, a 100 percent credit from EHOST on the general and hospital fund levies will be applied to all homestead properties. The estimated total tax relief from EHOST for 2024 is $164.6 million.

The increased millage rates in the general and hospital funds’ millage are to fund critical investments in the 2024 budget including $9.2 million to fund Voter Registration & Elections’ operations for the upcoming general election, $5.7 million to strengthen the county’s health care safety net through Grady Health System, and $3.8 million to enhance DeKalb Fire Rescue’s emergency medical response.

When the current total digest of taxable property is prepared, Official Code of Georgia Annotated § 48-5-32.1 requires a rollback millage rate must be computed that will produce the same total revenue on the current year’s digest that last year’s millage rate would have produced had no reassessments occurred.

The 2024 budget tentatively adopted by the DeKalb County Governing Authority requires a millage rate higher than the rollback millage rate, therefore, before the DeKalb County Governing Authority may set the final millage rates, Official Code of Georgia Annotated § 48-5-32.1 requires three public hearings to be held to allow the public an opportunity to express their opinions on the increase.

The public hearings will be held at the Manuel J. Maloof Auditorium 1300 Commerce Drive, Decatur on the following dates and times:

Tuesday, June 25, 10 a.m. and 6 p.m.

 Tuesday, July 9, 10 a.m.